The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Nicaragua to “immediately” release journalist Leo Cárcamo, detained in November 2024 and whose whereabouts are unknown.
“Require the State of Nicaragua to proceed with the immediate release of Catalino Leo Cárcamo,” indicates the resolution dated January 8 of the continental court, based in San José.
He also ordered “urgent measures to effectively protect their rights to life, personal integrity, freedom and health.”
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The retired journalist, 62 years old, was reportedly detained on November 22, 2024 “by state authorities and to date his whereabouts are unknown,” according to a report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), based in Washington.
That day, human rights groups and Nicaraguan media in exile reported the arrest of at least a dozen people in police raids in the departments of León (northwest) and Masaya (southwest).
The arrests occurred after the approval a day before of a controversial constitutional reform that grants Ortega and Rosario Murillo the status of co-presidents and absolute control of all the powers of the State.
Cárcamo’s second arrest
The arbitrary detention of Cárcamo was carried out by the León Police, led by Sandinista commissioner Fidel Domínguez. Activists, academics and journalists were kidnapped in the raid.
Cárcamo was a journalist for the defunct Radio Darío until four years ago, but he stopped collaborating with that media outlet, which now functions as a digital media outlet, precisely to avoid being imprisoned.
In January 2019, journalist Cárcamo, when he was still working at the station, He was violently detained by police officers. At that time “he was intercepted by the police who attacked him, handcuffed him and forcibly put him in a patrol car,” the radio outlet reported on that occasion.
Persecution of journalists
Some 280 Nicaraguan journalists have gone into exile in the last six years, according to the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED). Dozens of priests have been expelled.
Ortega and Murillo increased repression after the 2018 protests, which left more than 300 dead according to the UN, considered by Managua as an attempted coup d’état sponsored by Washington.
Nicaragua has recognized the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court, although it left the Organization of American States (OAS) in November 2023.
The Permanent Council of the OAS declared on that occasion that Nicaragua “remains obliged to respect all human rights reflected in customary norms (…) in the multilateral conventions to which it is a party and those derived from general principles of international law.”
